DG24007 The Severn and its Bore 1967 V01 280224

Use the link below to read “The SEVERN & ITS BORE” booklet from 1967.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uAA8Hb3H3Q9fSiFWEViLKY-I4L5d248k/view?usp=sharing

In my life I have only experienced a few natural phenomena that have affected me emotionally reminding me of my primeval beginnings. Eclipses where the total darkness in the middle of the day feels surreal. The frightening experience as a child in a thunderstorm of a lightning bolt exploding just outside the kitchen bathing me, my mom and my sister in the purest white light you could imagine like a huge flash bulb had exploded. Then the wonderous experience of a full moon rising when you are located on a hill top and it seems to occupy the whole sky. Next to these experiencing the Severn Bore on the River Severn counts as such a premeval emotional experience. In fact the Severn Bore offers for me two very different experiences. Firstly, being less dramatic but just as peculiar is witnessing a major wide river like the River Severn through Gloucester City Centre suddenly flowing in the opposite direction for a few hours. When you first witness it you have to take a second take particularly if you are unaware a Severn Bore is in progress. Secondly, but far more dramatically watching the Severn Bore wave thunder up the River Severn on a calm early morning. Read this brief descriptive narrative on the Severn Bore.

“I once took an American Work Colleague at 5.30 am in the morning to witness it at Minsterworth knowing there was a Spring High Tide. We stood there in the freezing cold having missed out on a hotel breakfast with the river so still with no flow and a mirrored surface. He became increasingly frustrated in an American way. When 5.30 am passed with no show he thought it was just another English exaggerated tourist attraction. Then the roar when the 7 foot bore wave rushed by but what catches people out is the river then continues to rise up to 20 feet over time flooding the banks forcing us to retreat. From a mirrored surface to a raging torrent of water in a few seconds. To say he was impressed is a bit of an understatement. It is the one geographical event that everybody should witness at least once in their lifetime. It is surreal watching a force of nature created by the magnetic force of the Moon on our seas display its power through tidal movements leading to the Severn Bore.”

Whilst talking about impressing an American. The most impressive event I witnessed in America was watching the Space Shuttle Endeavour launch at NASA Kennedy Space Centre  Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday the 12th September 1992.  Viewed from Titusville the opposite side of the Indian River we were about 7 miles away and it stood only one inch tall on the horizon. When it launched the crackle of the rocket engines was deafening and the flames themselves eye piercingly bright. In fact nothing like a Severn Bore !!!!   

Now to the “The SEVERN & ITS BORE” booklet which is one of a Series of 25 Brief Guides published by the Raleigh Press in 1967. I wish I owned some of the others. It has been one of my treasured booklet possessions for many years. Measuring only 5 inch (12.5 cm) by 7 inch (18.5 cm) it is a handy pocket size that has always appealed to me. Written by F.R.Rowbotham with me unable to find anything about him. My copy is a stapled booklet with a coloured thicker paper cover whilst the rest of the book is printed black and white using I assume offset lithography. Later versions were published by David & Charles Limited with hard covers and a conventional binding. Second hand copies of the hardback are selling on the internet although I have not seen any stapled copies like mine offered for sale. (2024).

In terms of the booklets content I particularly like the variety especially the inclusion of my favourite historical category “Gazetteer” on Page 6 covering Counties and Towns covering the length of the River Severn from Source to Sea. Oddly enough I also like the fact that the page number 5 has been missed by the typesetter. As a book publisher myself it’s the little errors like this that interest me with after publication you kicking yourself at not spotting the error earlier. Subjects like Fishing, Industrial Archaeology, Engineering, The Wildfowl Trust and the Inns of the Severn make it such a readable booklet. At 48 pages it is wonderfully concise and can be read in less than 30 minutes. In this age of Smartphones and Social Media posts that is the way we as humans now want our information parcelled up and presented to us supporting our often fruitless fully scheduled and time dependent lives. What did happen to stillness and reflection?

I always have concerns about the publishing of material as a PDF in terms of both the Author and Publisher Copyrights. So as the writer, F.R. Rowbotham’s 1967 Copyright is acknowledged as he or this estate still own copyright over his written words. But being over 25 years old now the Publisher Copyright of The Raleigh Press has lapsed. In terms of its commercial value with the content now so dated it would, in my opinion, have no sold for profit value. So as a Digital Publisher of Old Historic Documents, on a strictly none for profit basis, it is shared here strictly under a Creative Commons 4.0 Licence defined by a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed. If any objection is communicated to me by any of the current or previous Copyright Owners the content will be immediately removed from the internet.

The Severn Bore is covered in this link to Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_bore

 

Severn Bore Wave

DG24006 Arthur Measures Guide to Warwick 1995 V01 270224

Arthur Measure's Guide to Warwick 1995 link below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cxkpZoW5C-hQIBpctWlc2mFPFrKcH94E/view?usp=sharing

A very common question raised by visitors to Warwick Town, knowing it is listed as being on the River Avon, is “Where is the River Avon”? I have been a regular visitor to Warwick for over 50 years and I never located the River Avon in the town thinking the only access to it was through St Nicholas Park on the outskirts along the Banbury Road. The location of the Warwick Castle seemed to prevent all access to the River Avon. Then suddenly in 2019 whilst researching a new book being published by me on Warwick based upon the essays of Steven Walsgrove (Deceased) did I venture down Mill Street to the amazing Mill Garden at the bottom overlooking the ruins of the 14^th Century Old Warwick Bridge over the River Avon alongside the Old Castle Mill. Vehicle access down Mill Street is a nightmare with virtually no parking so it had never been a location you would visit. At Mill Garden you suddenly experience a whole different perspective of Warwick. Sited right up against the Castle walls the old bridge lead to an idyllic area called Bridge End. To visit Bridge End you have to go along way around to get to it by walking over the new Castle Bridge along the Banbury Road to get to the traffic island before turning right. You then enter a whole new world of tranquillity which would have been a busy hamlet called Bridge End before the bridge was destroyed.

So why is Arthur Measure’s Visitor’s Guide to Warwick so significant. Well Arthur Measure is a Warwick legend who spent his life renovating the Mill Garden. Here is the link to his Guardian Obituary but I have also copied out the contents and pasted it below so there no need to use the link.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/nov/17/guardianobituaries.maevkennedy

Copyright the Guardian

Arthur Measures (1909 – 1999) Obituary

A small town garden, at the foot of a steep narrow lane in Warwick, is known to thousands of visitors. By the time it closed at the end of the season, the home-made collecting box was expected to have gathered £100,000 for charity. Arthur Measures, who has died aged 90, and had lived in the town from childhood, was the quietly remarkable creator of that garden in Mill Street.

I met him only once, two years ago. He had been worryingly ill but was determined to talk about his last great campaign - to acquire for the public and restore the tattered, but magnificent, 18th-century landscape gardens of Warwick Castle, then under threat of development. I was warned to stay only 30 minutes. Hours later, on a bitterly cold, foggy winter day - after Arthur had stopped to talk to every favourite plant in the garden - I had to march him back into his house and physically force him into his armchair.

He became famous for his garden, but he was loved by people who wouldn't know a rose from a mangle wurzle. As manager of the main Birmingham branch of Barclays Bank, his kindness was legendary. He backed his hunches in loans which defied all conventional banking wisdom.

Every morning, he sat with his deputy and opened all the day's post in the main hall, surrounded by the staff. A colleague recalls him opening one letter and throwing it in the air with a whoop of triumph: "I threw him a gnat and he's swallowed a camel!" he cried, learning that his head office manager had resignedly backed one of his more eccentric decisions.

It seems likely that his kindness, particularly to people who ran their lives into bramble thickets, came from his unusual childhood. He was born in Manchester but moved, aged one, into the Warwick workhouse, where his parents, who were master and matron, brought up a family of six. He saw a system which would have been familiar to Dickens and how easily poverty could tip decent people into destitution.

He married a local Warwick woman, Violet Bray, in 1936, and they moved into the cottage at the end of Mill Street and started planting. They made a cottage garden on an exuberant scale, framing absurdly picturesque views of the great flank of Warwick Castle, and the ruins of the medieval bridge across the River Avon. It was originally opened for one weekend to raise money to restore the St Mary's church tower. But gradually Arthur and Violet acquired a string of other charities - 35 at the last count - and eventually their garden opened from Easter to October.

In 1959, his friends in the Mill Street cottages discovered their houses were about to be sold over their heads by the Earl of Warwick, along with 150 other properties. The sale was as a single lot, so none of his neighbours had any chance of bidding. To outbid a Birmingham property developer, Arthur Measures organised a syndicate - with a Barclays loan, of course - bought all the cottages for £610,000, and divided up the leases.

He took early retirement from the bank after 42 years because of ill-health and died close to the garden he loved. The news went round the world. At the suggestion of dozens of friends, his children David and Julia will establish a fund to preserve the garden, and keep it open in his memory.

Arthur Bradley Measures, banker and horticulturist, born September 1 1909; died September 19 1999

 End of Obituary

When I visited the Mill Gardens I asked the woman taking the entrance fee if I could take some photographs. It turned out that she was Julia one of Arthur’s children and she was fine with the taking of the photographs but asked if I could include a copyright statement as follows:-

“Photos of the Medieval Bridge by Kind Permission of

David and Julia Russell of the Mill Street Gardens.”

 

Now back to the booklet called “Arthur Measure’s Visitor’s Guide to Warwick”. It is an exceptional piece of work which combines historical background inclusive of a hand drawn map clearly referenced with the locations of all the roads and places of interest within Warwick. The sketches by Christine Measures are of a very flamboyant pen and ink style which capture the essence of each of the locations. Under Attractive Walks the listed “From Church Street, along TINK-A-TANK to the Butts, back through the College Garden and round the Church yard” always has an air of mystery about it since the name evolved, evidently, from the sound of hard shoes on the path amplified by the adjacent walls.

I will not give any more away since many more aspects of Warwick will be covered in my new book on Warwick on sale at Amazon later in the year. (2024). In the meantime my Tour Guide of Stratford upon Avon based upon the Pencil Sketches by Joseph Pike (1929) adopts a similar approach.

Buy from Amazon using this link.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0950871877 

Old Warwick Bridge over the River Avon

Viewed from Mill Garden, Mill Street, Warwick 

DG24005 National Garden Scheme 2024 V01 260224

 National Garden Scheme Worcestershire 2024 Booklet link below:-

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C6IUA6LRArP6G6GMdMhDFs8vbyiXvL67/view?usp=sharing

I don’t normally blog about currently Published Booklets (2024) since my interest normally lies in old historic booklets rather than these contemporary versions. Whilst acknowledging the National Trust is the most famous owner of historic gardens I tend to avoid blogging on these since they are normally very well publicised in both the National Media and Social Media. But here the National Garden Scheme (ngs) is a very unusual setup being founded on the basis of being a charity that has for nearly 100 years, since 1928, based itself on looking to help fund “district nursing” for those in need. It engages with garden owners who are very proud of their gardens and prepared to share them with the General Public to fund the charity. With the current high level of public internet availability many now host Websites or Social Media sites to share their details and most importantly accurately advise on their availability to receive visits.

Use their Website link below to see more information particularly their History and when they are open if you choose to make a visit. :-

https://www.ngs.org.uk

DG24004 Malvern Guide 1969 V01 240224

Malvern Guide 1969 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZG2cz8jZQlELmqpueG17J9PqYkJYjNNx/view?usp=sharing

This 1969 Malvern Guide was printed by a Gazette Printer (see back page) and it upholds many of the principles that the term gazette has come to bestow on these types of printed pamphlet or booklet. Their origin was based upon the outbreak of a plague in Oxford in 1665. This was to be the Oxford Gazette which later became the London Gazette. Although the word gazette came from the Italian word gazetta which was a Venetian news sheet in the 1600s. The term gazettes, in the United Kingdom, has become a very popular name for many locally produced and distributed printed guides although much of their original content has now been taken over by newspapers where often the term gazette is retained in the title masthead although the move to digitisation has now resulted in the term’s final redundancy.

Look at the history section on the www.thegazette.co.uk/history website to learn more about gazettes.

In Malvern the Malvern Priory Church is a surprise since it is a church that was built to Cathedral proportions by the Normans when it was founded in 1085 as a Benedictine Priory in the time of the Domesday Book.

Read up on the Great Malvern Priory as it is referred to these days on Wikipedia below.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Malvern_Priory

Learn more about the Domesday Book from this book sold on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0950871869

 

DG24003 Warwickshire Water Colours 1916 V01 220224

Link to Warwickshire Water Colours by Fred Whitehead 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FtSqmUGXwDQPZPJeZ9eiSH_06Qy6Gndl/view?usp=sharing

This Warwickshire Water-Colours Book by Fred Whitehead R.B.A (March 1916) was found in a charity shop in a very poor state. So this is an incomplete copy of the book. Many pages were seriously water damaged with damp, the binding was falling apart, the Frontispiece (Kenilworth Castle) was torn and the board covers damaged with the picture on the Front Cover (Ann Hathaway’s Cottage) seriously faded. But surprisingly the water colour paintings inside the book had been printed on a glossy high quality paper so on this basis I decided to digitise and share. The key to the survival of these prints is the paper and ink used. The paper has been coated with China clay in manufacture also it was a higher weight (100 gsm) and thereby thicker (0.08 mm). Printing on this type of paper is more difficult since more care has to be taken because the ink dries more slowly not being as readily absorbed by the papers surface. I suspect it was printed using a Chromolithography technique which was commonly used for the reproduction of works of art. It is this technique that has now allowed for such an excellent digitisation of the original prints in the book. The only thing I have done in the digitisation process is reorientate some of the paintings so they are correctly presented to you as you scroll through the PDF. In the original many were printed so you had to turn the book through 90 degrees to view them correctly orientated.

Now to the water colour paintings. Fred Whitehead (1853-1938) was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, United Kingdom although he is best known for his paintings of the Dorset countryside. For more detail read the Wikipedia entry for him by using the link below.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Whitehead

 

On my to do list is to go back and take up to date photographs of these locations. But I already have one from another book project of mine looking at the History of Warwick. This is the Leicester’s Hospital, Warwick (Plate 4) below today with Fred Whitehead's water colour shown below it for comparison.

Leicester's Hospital, Warwick

DG24002 Gateway to the Avon 1971 V01 190224

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L4gr1n8aY_kkrTLtpgSdV5gDBvpLtXZl/view?usp=sharing

This Gateway to the Avon Booklet (link to PDF above and below) was published in 1971 by the Lower Avon Navigation Trust, Worcestershire at a cost of 25p. It covered the River Avon from Evesham down to Tewkesbury with detail of all the lock settings on the way. But note the book is sequenced travelling northwards from Tewkesbury to Evesham.

The restoration of the Lower Avon was completed in 1962 whilst the Upper Avon was not completed until 1974 when the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother opened it in Stratford upon Avon on the 1^st June 1974 with the restoration extending up to Warwick.

Read up details in the History Section on the Wikipedia Link below :-

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Avon,_Warwickshire

So read through this Gateway to the Avon Booklet to experience life over 50 years ago with all the old advertisements. It includes the total £77,862 restoration cost on Page 62 with the exact details of the expenditure on the previous pages. But the one thing that has always impressed me with this booklet are the full page diagrams of each of the lock settings. I believe it was these excellent diagrams that caused me never to throw this booklet away and the reason it is available today for me to digitise into a PDF to share with you. The booklet benefits from being digitised as a PDF in that you can now just scroll through all the pages. From Page 12  the text is structured into two columns. The left hand column is a tourist narrative on the local towns and villages listing some of the places of interest worth visiting. Whilst the right hand column is headed "Navigation Notes" with a distance in miles shown in the centre of the page from the Tewkesbury start point. These Navigation Notes include all the instructions and warnings as you navigate up the River Avon from the boat owners perspective. Being able to now scroll through this journey now makes for a very satisfying experience with it being better than when it was in a stapled book format.

On some of the scanned images you can on some pages see the rust marks left by the booklet's original steel staples which was its original binding technique. For those interested in marginalia like me go to page 68 where the day, number of hours and location have been noted. This looks like the journey times of the booklet owner who appears to have started from Upton on Severn on the River Severn. The total journey time to Stratford upon Avon being 27 hours of travelling time. Marginalia was a very important element within the Domesday Book. (1086). When searching for secondhand books the ones that appeal to me are the ones where the previous owner(s) have made copious notes all over the books pages. Reading these give you an insight into the readers thought processes. 

For those interested in marginalia use the link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalia

It is noted that the Copyright of the publisher, The Avon Navigation Trust, is legally acknowledged and that it is shared here on behalf of the publisher based upon a Creative Commons 4.0 Licence defined by a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed to the intellectual benefit of the Avon Navigation Trust.

Tewksbury Lock allowing access between the 

River Avon and the River Severn.

This link below will display the opposite side of the lock 

on the Front Cover of the booklet. (Circa 1971)

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L4gr1n8aY_kkrTLtpgSdV5gDBvpLtXZl/view?usp=sharing

DG24001 River Severn Gloucester V01 180224

Gloucester Docks, often signposted the Gloucester Quays, has been an important part of my life since I owned a modern flat within the docks for 17 years (2005-2022) which gave me an ideal opportunity to study and explore both Gloucester’s history and geography. Gloucester has both an incredible history starting with many artefacts from Roman Times (AD 43-577) through to having an exceptional geography both physical and economic closely linked to the River Severn and the building of Gloucester Docks. But in this blog post I am going to briefly focus upon the River Severn hopefully introducing you to some surprising geographical facts whilst sharing with you a small booklet created by Chris Witts covering the One Hundred Bridges (at the time of its publication in 1996 ) spanning the River Severn from its source in Wales to becoming the Bristol Channel. Chris Witts I know nothing about but I have treasured his booklet for many years and reading his biography on the back of his booklet (linked below) appreciated his strong links to Gloucester Docks. Through my DMB Publishing hobby one of my activities is sharing freely digitised copies of these types of Home Published Booklets that would otherwise be lost forever. The Copyright of the author must ways legally be acknowledged and they are shared here on behalf of the author based upon a Creative Commons 4.0 Licence defined by a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Deed.

Firstly I am not going to just copy type here much of the geographical history surrounding Gloucester Docks because my blog https://adigitalgeography.blogspot.com is intended to add historical value not repeat what is already digitally published on the internet. Although providing you with links to some of these digital resources is part of digitally sharing indicated by the title “A Digital Geography” where ideally all resources need to be digital. So it might be worth you reading this link first.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol4/pp251-258

So what is the first of my own surprising geographical facts. The modern flats, one of which I owned, shown in the photograph below are built upon what was an island in the middle of the River Severn branch that breaks off from the main River Severn at the Upper Parting at Maisemore before rejoining at the Lower Parting creating the Alney Island. In fact the geographical term for this is a “distributary” and in this case it joins back up with the main river just south of Over Bridge. Both are called the River Severn. The Alney Island acts as a flood plain and recently I have witnessed it being subject to more floods. I have walked across the Alney Island to the Lower Parting and viewed this wide expanse of water where the distributary that passes near to the centre of the Gloucester City rejoins the main river.

When I first visited this site they were building these flats (2004) special drilling rigs had to be used by a specialist foundation drilling (piling) company because they were drilling into essentially a narrow sandbank. In fact this original River Severn island existed before the docks were constructed. With the one side of the river turned into the docks the other side remained the River Severn at the back of these flats. Originally boats were docked on either side of this island before the one side was turned into the docks basin linked to the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. The one end of the island provided for a lock to the River Severn which had a huge rise and fall particularly in floods and the other end allowed for two Dry Docks to be constructed off the main dock basin before the basin linked to the canal. Look at this Google aerial photo to appreciate this layout.

To me one of the mysteries that I didn’t learn about until I had lived in Gloucester for over 10 years was the existence on the Alney Island of an old derelict lock that existed to allow the navigation of boats around a particularly shallow part of the River Severn distributary which now has a weir. In fact with its closure boats are no longer able to use this part of the River Severn to join the main River Severn south of Over Bridge. See an aerial Google photo of this Old Derelict Lock. But be warned although public access is allowed the owners of the nearby house which would have been the Lock Keepers Cottage site don’t seem too keen on visitors judging by the barbed wire and warning notices.

 

Another surprising geographical fact is that at the back of these flats the River Severn Distributary can flow in two different directions. Normally it flows east but it can flow west. This is because particularly in the high Spring and Autumn Bristol Channel tides the water is forced up the River Severn funnel shaped estuary forming the Severn Bore. So the Severn Bore forces the river to flow in the opposite direction by Gloucester Docks. It is not a dramatic experience to witness here in Gloucester but the best location is down at Minsterworth on the A48 by Minsterworth Church. I once took an American Work Colleague at 5.30 am in the morning to witness it at Minsterworth knowing there was a Spring High Tide. We stood there in the freezing cold having missed out on a hotel breakfast with the river so still with no flow and a mirrored surface. He became increasingly frustrated in an American way. When 5.30 am passed with no show he thought it was just another English exaggerated tourist attraction. Then the roar when the 7 foot bore wave rushed by but what catches people out is the river then continues to rise up to 20 feet over time flooding the banks forcing us to retreat. To say he was impressed is a bit of an understatement. It is the one geographical event that everybody should witness at least once in their lifetime. It is surreal watching a force of nature created by the magnetic force of the Moon on our seas display its power through tidal movements leading to the Severn Bore.

Use the link below to read more about the Severn Bore

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_bore

 So finally a walk across Alney Island taking care when it is flooded to seek out a dry route over to Over Bridge. It is a splendid Nature Reserve. Once at Over Bridge you can explore the Telford built Over Bridge (Number 97) in the Century of Bridges Booklet and from the top of it view the Over Railway Bridge (Number 98).

Thomas Telford's Over Bridge 

Railway Bridge viewed from Over Bridge

To see the location of the hundred bridges over the River Severn use the Link below to see the Century of Bridges Booklet by Chris Witts hopefully being as impressed as I have always been with its contents.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gv_dxz1utBYcK9UOXr9CipWfpwSOaein/view?usp=sharing